A ground station controls the deployment and other satellite commanding procedures when the satellite is launched into space. A satellite commanding procedure may have a number of satellite commanding functions. Each satellite commanding function has a number of procedure steps associated therewith. Each procedure steps have a number of arguments associated therewith such as the timing for the certain events.
Satellite commanding functions such as firing bolt cutters, performing turning sequences or other operations are initiated according to the satellite commanding procedure in the ground station. The satellite commanding procedure with its associated satellite commanding functions is developed before the satellite is launched to allow verification of the satellite commanding procedure.
One method that is used to develop satellite commanding procedures is a commercially available program called a mission tool kit. One function of the mission tool kit is to verify that it is possible to associate various checks with a given command in the procedure. The programming language results in a lengthy difficult to understand program. One drawback with such a method for developing a satellite commanding procedure is that the operation of the program cannot be verified in real time, which is highly desirable for satellite program development. That is, before the satellite is deployed a check of the satellite commanding procedure is executed to verify operation. Previously, real time procedures could not be run.
Another drawback to the prior manner in which commanding procedures are implemented is that not all relevant information is displayed on the screen. In addition, the actual lines of code are lengthy, making it difficult and time consuming to determine the course of the procedure.